IRONMAN 70.3 Marbella, Spain. February 23, 2019 ~Bonking~

BRICK

2:45 hours at 190 Watts + 15 min Run off bike

A brick workout is any workout that combines swimming, biking and/or running into a single session. The most common example is the bike to run brick, where you go for a run immediately after finishing a bike ride.

Results

I am satisfied with this numbers and consider my calculations right on point. It’s a win!

BIKE

What do you know about “bonking”?

The first 40-50 minutes felt strong, pedaling without too much of an effort (RPE 3-4). Wasn’t fueling until 30 minutes into the ride. Approximately at minute 50 my power began going down increasing RPE.

Since then it was a total suffer fest. No matter how much I ate or drank, my power kept going down and down. I hit the wall or how cyclists call it “bonked”. Glycogen in my muscles and liver got depleted making my body fatigue and bonk. It felt incredibly hard to keep pushing 190 watts and I had to slow down multiple times for 10-15 seconds, because I just couldn’t keep going. My mind began playing tricks on me, but no matter what I did, I just couldn’t physically spin my legs. Even knowing my legs were hurting, it wasn’t about pain. I simply couldn’t force my body to push the pedals. Multiple times I had thoughts to quit and stop this suffering as I couldn’t keep up with workout.

Here is how bonking looks like on a graph:

While heart rate is going up, speed and power falls down.

RUN

Immediately after the ride I put my running gear on and went out for a 15 minutes run. My legs felt like jelly, running at 5:28 /km pace RPE felt like 6-7. Didn’t try to push, making the emphasis on keeping the form.

Severe diarrhea hit me 5 minutes into the run. I honestly thought I would shit my pants… In addition to that had minor stomach cramps. Had to finish the cool down part short… at the restroom.

Lessons Learned:

3,000 calories / day with 400 grams of carbohydrates I currently eat on my diet is not enough to fulfill the energy demands. I went glycogen depleted into the training and payed the price.

100 grams of carbs from pre-meal burned in 40 minutes.

Confirmed my Sweat Rate calculations. Approximately 1500 mL/hour.

Learned what the bonking is and how it feels.

If you drain your glycogen tanks, there is no way to refuel it on the fly, while keeping the power & speed.